Books: Flowerings the Newspaper of Claremont Street

by Elizabeth Jolley Viking; 116 pages; $14.95

Those who have not yet discovered the work of Elizabeth Jolley might well start with this novel. For one thing, it is brief, deceptively simple, eccentric and entirely in keeping with the comic, macabre nature of her best fiction. And it is nice to know that there is more where this comes from. The Newspaper of Claremont Street is the eighth Jolley book, including six other novels and a collection of stories, to be released in the U.S. in the past three years. Prior to 1984, she was one of Australia's best-kept literary secrets. Now her international reputation has edged past...